


B-Movie Love Story

by pentapus



Category: Naruto
Genre: KakaIru Month 2015, M/M, Soul Bond, fluid relationship with fourth war canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-20
Updated: 2015-06-20
Packaged: 2018-04-05 07:08:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4170669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pentapus/pseuds/pentapus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Iruka had barely touched the beer in front of him; it was the end of the school year, and he'd had a low grade headache for days. Somewhere halfway through this stack of student papers, the headache had kicked up into dizziness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	B-Movie Love Story

"Iruka-sensei!"

Iruka looked up from his papers. A blonde head was peering around the edge of the booth, wearing the usual sunshine smile. More heads popped up behind Naruto. Ino, Hinata, Sakura, former students intrigued to find a symbol of adulthood in their recreational space. Ino was watching him less with excitement, more shrewd curiosity, befitting of a Yamanaka.

Iruka leaned back, greeting them with a raised, skeptical eyebrow. _Aren’t you a little young for this bar?_ But inside he was proud. There were only two ways into the back rooms of a ninja bar: through the checkpoints, each with stringent requirements of age, rank, and experience... or by finding another way in. A rite of passage that earned you a spot inside, no matter your qualifications.

Iruka had never been farther in than this. And there _were_ more rooms beyond this one where the seats were taken up by elite operatives with very specific mission histories and by old combat veterans who against all odds had survived to retire. People who didn’t want to -- or didn’t trust themselves -- to unwind around anyone who hadn’t seen and done the things they had. 

This room of dark, old wood was plenty far enough for Iruka. He remembered the first time he’d come, on the heels of more illustrious colleagues, staring wide-eyed at the strange animal masks hanging from the walls. They weren’t the traditional red and white of ANBU, but he had realized slowly, awed, that ANBU was what they were, just so old that no one alive remembered the missions they’d seen. 

Iruka had barely touched the beer in front of him. He'd had a low grade headache for days, and beer wasn’t going to help that. He’d come to grade papers, fond of the quiet atmosphere and the chance to be surrounded only by older, active shinobi.Grading in here helped him remember why he liked teaching. He could imagine a future for each of his kids, from trouble maker to teacher’s pet, casually ordering a drink from this bar, pleased with a successful mission and the company of friends.

Somewhere halfway through this stack of student papers, the headache had kicked up into dizziness. He’d been planning to go home and try to sleep it off before class tomorrow, but now --

Iruka smiled up at Naruto. He would stay only a little longer. It was worth the effort.

Naruto slid onto the bench next to him with a thump and a bounce, his face moving through elaborate gymnastics of curiosity over Iruka's papers. "Did you grade _my_ homework here?"

"I couldn’t _get in_ here when you were in the academy," Iruka laughed. He slid towards the wall and sat with his head propped on his hand so that he could subtly massage his left temple, which had suddenly started to hurt.

Naruto’s head came up, eyes-wide. He was too young to be used to the idea that adults also aged and grew. Iruka grinned at him fondly. 

"That would have explained Sakura's good grades," Ino said. She hopped enthusiastically into the booth, grabbing at the menu leaning against the wall.

"You're hilarious," Sakura said. "Oh -- these are genin teams."

"Next year's, provided everyone graduates," Iruka agreed.

Sakura was still accumulating pockets along with medical expertise, he saw, while Ino moved closer to the standard uniform with each added responsibility. Standing shyly at the back of the group, Hinata was the only one actually dressed to regulation. Iruka wondered if she would ever be able to choose herself over duty, but perhaps he should choose to admire that in her, as Naruto obviously did. His smile turned wry; it was just the headache making him maudlin.

"Who are the senseis?" Hinata asked. She startled when Ino groaned next to her. Sakura's eyes narrowed, and she turned to Iruka, gleeful.

"Shikamaru?" Sakura said.

Iruka nodded, blinking. His head had started to feel disconnected from his body, and he was spacing out, looking at a tanuki mask painted in dark green over the bar. It looked a little blurry. Past indiscretions meant he knew it concealed a set of kunai. No, Hatake Kakashi had told him that, of all people. 

"Your generation of sensei are ready to go through again,” Iruka said distantly, “Kurenai and Gai. Shikamaru will inherit Asuma’s place."

"Kakashi-sensei, too?" Sakura asked, a note of hope badly hidden in her voice. "This is his terrible handwriting." Rumor had cast Kakashi as disconnected and listless since Uchiha Obito’s second, _final_ death. Everyone had expected -- had hoped -- that as Konoha’s most dutiful protector, he would become a leader to Konoha’s shinobi. Instead, he had retreated. A hermit inside the village, a nearly invisible operative outside of it.

Iruka knew this because Naruto worried about it constantly.

"Iruka-sensei has been buttering him up," Naruto confided to Sakura, leaning far over the table. "He tricked Baka-sensei into helping him match genin teams and senseis. They've been working on it for weeks. He's going to do it, isn't he, Iruka-sensei? "

Iruka sighed. He had thought so, too, and he had been happy to give Naruto this labor. Iruka couldn’t fight Konoha’s enemies, but this request -- to reconnect Kakashi with the world of the living -- had seemed within his skillset. Iruka could wrangle people, and he’d thought -- he’d seen signs that maybe Kakashi had benefited from the attention. 

At first he’d thought Kakashi enjoyed needling him, which was both more and less annoying for how familiar it was from teaching forgotten children in need of attention. But Kakashi hadn’t always been in a needling mood, and he had still come to Iruka’s planning sessions, sometimes with a streak of Grass Country mud on his cheek or trailing a mission desk administrator wanting A-class field orders stamped for distribution. 

On those days, Kakashi would sink into the seat across from Iruka so gratefully that over time, Iruka had started to put together a picture of a shinobi who couldn’t remember life outside of S-class clearance. Someone who found Iruka’s academy stories a soothing reminder of a community he protected but rarely saw. Someone who found Iruka’s 9-to-5 chuunin life as exotically interesting as Iruka found the ANBU masks above the bar.

"I don't know, Naruto. I thought he was softening up, but I saw him tonight, and he... wasn’t interested. He's very cynical about new students, you know."

Naruto pursed his lips. "He's back from his mission?" Sakura casually slapped the back of her hand against his arm. "I mean,” Naruto added quickly, “not that he was on a mission. He's probably just been working on, uh, a lot of home repair."

Ino sighed, even as Hinata and Iruka turned curiously towards Naruto’s slip. To her, secrets were mundane. "What do you have to do to get served around here?"

"Ah, are you not in the know?" Iruka said, smiling.

"Hey, you said they didn't even let you in here before," Ino complained.

"But now I have network of alumni. Here." Iruka pushed out of the booth, heading for the bar. Technically there were hand signs one could use to order from the table, but he wanted to ask for water and painkillers without dampening the evening for his students.

He didn't make it to the bar. His students saw him fall. 

Iruka opened his eyes to a hallucinatory image of reds and blacks and shifting currents, strange shapes and after images. He blinked and the mirage cleared into a blurry view of animal masks hanging from a dark wood ceiling and Naruto's terrified face. Sharp pain hit him in the ribs and he felt a knife start to carve its way up his arm -- a very real, very tangible pain that didn't make sense with what he saw around him. Iruka let out a sharp, pained sound and tried to curl up. His hand flailed toward Naruto. Iruka wasn't a target. Was someone trying to hurt Naruto?

"Iruka-sensei," Naruto pleaded. “Please, what's wrong?”

"This is definitely a jutsu," Hinata said. "His chakra leaves his body and disappears -- it must be going very far away."

Sakura was pulling Iruka’s arm away from his body.

“What,” he breathed painfully. He couldn't get away from whatever was cutting him. 

“Iruka-sensei, let me block the jutsu.” She was painting something on his arm, her strokes hasty and lightning fast. The ink of the seal was cool and soothing. Pain faded with each stroke from overwhelming to bearable. Iruka gasped in relief. 

Sakura looked up. "We need to get to the hospital. I can't do enough from here -- Naruto! Not inside!"

When Naruto's head turned back into Iruka's vision, his eyes were virulent orange and slit-pupiled. A haze hovered over his skin, and Iruka frowned. He'd never seen it before, only felt it. "Naruto," he managed to get out, putting his good hand on Naruto's wrist.

Naruto's face crumpled. He rubbed at his eyes and seemed to gather himself. "I'm sorry, Iruka-sensei, Sakura-chan."

Iruka didn't remember much of the trip to the hospital, though he did know he was carried there by Naruto, not the demon fox. _Thank the First_. At some point, he realized Tsunade had joined them in the hospital room and that Iruka had lost his vest and shoes. Ino and Hinata were gone, and the blinds had been pulled.

Sakura’s hand was on his forehead, chakra cool on her fingertips. 

Iruka had his wounded arm pressed protectively against his side. No one had bandaged it. He must not have been out of it for very long. There was a small paper seal stuck to his chest over his clothes. He frowned at it -- what was it doing?

Naruto was pacing back and forth in front of the blinds, red faced. "How is it not an attack?"

"It is, but not on Iruka," said Sakura. Tsunade had a hand over her mouth thoughtfully, frowning.

"It's an attack on me!" Naruto roared. His voice cracked. "Where are they? _Point me at ‘em!_ "

"Naruto," Iruka said.

Naruto whipped around. Iruka reached for him with his good hand, but Tsunade was snapping her fingers in his face. "Iruka, symptoms, now. While you're coherent."

She was definitely a combat medic, Iruka thought. “My ribs, probably broken, on my right side. A blade wound on my arm, but I didn't see anyone. Maybe a long-distance attack,” he leaned forward earnestly, “but I don't make sense as a target, Hokage-sama. They might have been aiming for Naruto." 

"Iruka." Tsunade pulled his wounded arm away from his ribs bluntly. He went rigid, self-defense warring with the ingrained need to respect and obey the Hokage. “Iruka, _look._ ” She held his arm up for his own inspection, and he stared at smooth unbroken skin. Smeared chakra ink covered the inside of his forearm, but he remembered Sakura doing that. His other hand prodded timidly at his ribs. They hurt but they weren't tender to his touch. 

Cold confusion crawled down his spine: "A jutsu?" he whispered.

And it was still happening, he realized. Now that he was looking for it, he could feel new cuts opening underneath Sakura's muffling jutsu, though the feeling was numb and far away.

"Sort of," Tsunade said. "OK, you said broken ribs -- yeah, you noticed they aren't broken either -- and a slice in your arm. Show me where."

Iruka traced the path of the cut he could feel but not see. It was not a single cut but many. His heart started to pound as he watched his finger trace out something terrifyingly like kanji. A jutsu. _A jutsu that wasn't finished._

“Ah--Sakura-chan,” Iruka said, hating the quaver in his voice. He sat up, muscles tightening, but he had nowhere to run, and Naruto was watching. 

"Shit!” said Tsunade. “Somebody copy that down. Maybe we can figure out what jutsu that is."

"It's still cutting," Iruka said. He could hear the catch in his breath.

“It's not done yet then,” Sakura said, hopeful. 

“Can we -- should we -- stop it?” Iruka said. He closed his eyes. Of course, he was flustered in a real field situation, something his kids faced every time they left the village.

Tsunade patted his hand. Iruka stared at her, his hand closing tightly over his forearm. It didn’t stop the cutting. 

Shikamari came in pulling a cart of scrolls, Ino pushing in behind him, out of breath.

“Cleared,” she said. “Security is on alert and they're doing a sweep of the village, but Hinata said whatever attached to his chakra wasn't nearby, so it’s unlikely there was anybody to find.”

"Good," said Tsunade. "Nara, get me that list. Iruka, other symptoms?"

Iruka felt paralyzed, his arm held awkwardly away from his body, gripped in his other hand and his head still aching. Their professionalism made him anxious. 

Shikamaru pulled the cart into the middle of the room, and now everyone except Tsunade had turned away from Iruka to go over -- mission room log books? Yes, that’s what they were. Iruka recognized their oversized format and the leather binding stamped with the Konoha leaf, their corners worn after being opened and closed all day long to record the missions that kept Konoha running. 

Ino had her own pile, not logbooks but scrolls whose seals were a violent red. Classified mission assignments. Iruka tried not to stare, anxiety heading towards panic.

Tsunade was still looking at him, expression impatient like she hadn’t even noticed Sakura flipping through a wide-format logbook she’d opened at the foot of the bed next to Iruka’s feet. 

Iruka looked between them, off balance. "Oh, I... hallucination.”

"Of?" Tsunade said.

"Nonsense. Just shapes. And dizziness.” Iruka looked up at her in dawning understanding, “I haven't felt very well recently. Has this been -- for days?"

Naruto was suddenly at his side, putting his hand against Iruka's forehead. Iruka tried to smile up at him. "Iruka-sensei, you should tell me when you're sick."

"Hmm, how long -- well, maybe that won't matter. Shikamaru!" Tsunade snapped. He slapped a paper into her waiting hand, which she dropped on Iruka's lap.

"It's not finished," Shikamaru warned. 

He looked down at the paper in his lap. It was a list of names. On his arm, another line of pain cut across the numbness. One character closer to finished.

The list said:

_Shiranui Genma_

_Sato Shoma_

_Akiyama Kita_

_Yamanaka Eri_

_Yuuhi Kurenai_

_Inuzuka Kenshi..._

... and more names of ninjas Iruka knew and some he’d barely be able to pick out of a line up. All of them had been on the other side of the mission assignment desk at one time or another. Active field nin. 

Tsunade handed him a pen. "Mark anybody you've spent time with in the last month. Mark it twice if you've been in combat of any kind with them."

“In the last month?” Iruka said, bewildered. He felt his heart rate kick up. “What is going on? These are -- shinobi on missions.”

“Ah, that’s right; you’re mission room staff.” Tsunade waved vaguely toward the cart. “Hinata can trace your chakra outside your body, headed for who knows where. By how thin it’s stretched out, it’s reaching a long distance. Strong stuff. Sakura thinks you’re chakra-bonded. You dating anyone, kid?”

“Chakra-bonded?” Iruka said, startled. He felt, unexpectedly, relief. Maybe these cuts weren’t cutting _him_ at all _._ “But that’s -- that’s a combat thing. Or, uh.” He flushed.

“Or a shitty B-movie. _Don’t argue_ ,” Tsunade added, apparently to Sakura, who had her mouth open to speak. “And anyway, Iruka shouldn’t have the chakra for it.”

“I shouldn’t,” Iruka agreed. He circled Genma, Kenshi, and Eri. “I’ve been on missions with these three, though it was several years ago that it was regular. I was injured on a mission with Genma about, um, seven years ago now. We saw combat. I, uh, I spend time with him and Kenshi outside of work.”

“Tsunade-shishou,” Sakura said.

Tsunade heaved a sigh. “We aren’t going to talk about the beauty of chakra bonds are we?”

Sakura glared. “No, shishou. Just -- the jutsu on Iruka’s arm is an incapacitor. Heavy-duty. It’s too slow for combat. Whoever is bonded to Iruka is captured, was probably captured before the wound started. You can see the incapacitor jutsu isn't doing anything to Iruka -- it’s definitely a chakra-bonding to another Konoha shinobi.”

Iruka traced fingers over the phantom cuts on his arm. He knew what an incapactor felt like, though the memories were a long time ago now, the heavy feeling on your chest, the struggle just to breathe. He felt nothing like that. But someone was feeling that. Somebody on the other end of this, and Iruka didn’t know who. 

But chakra bonds were supposed to be -- you weren’t supposed to be able to _not know_. How could there be someone out there so important to Iruka it was the stuff of cheesy novels and the sighs of lovesick teenagers, and he could just _not know_?

“Damn it,” Tsunade said. Her facade cracked, weariness and worry underneath. “And we’ve got nothing? No warnings? No SOS?”

Tsunade’s worry made it real for Iruka. As much time as he spent at the mission desk, he didn’t feel responsible for Konoha’s field shinobi, not the way he did for his kids. For Tsunade, there was one of _her_ kids out there now, in enemy hands, feeling their chakra -- their body’s life essence -- choked off piece by piece with each stroke of this jutsu.

Iruka marked more names mechanically as they were handed to them. His arm continued to sting, new lines opening under the numbness of the medical jutsu. With each new cut, a sick feeling crept into his stomach. Iruka was going to feel a Konoha shinobi die, cut by cut.

A map had appeared on the wall. They were handing Iruka names now that he had watched Ino copy straight from ANBU scrolls. He’d learned more about Konoha’s S-class activities in the last five minutes than he’d known in his entire life. He pressed his injured-but-not arm against his stomach and knuckled down. 

Genma, Kenshi, Eri -- these were still the shinobi Iruka knew best, but it was strange to think of his chakra reaching out for theirs. History and fiction both agreed that a chakra bond was a survival trait -- it formed in extraordinary circumstances when people needed more strength than they could find in their own bodies and minds to survive. Bond mates were complimentary people, stronger together than apart.

Iruka tried to imagine his chakra reaching out for Genma, and something inside him withdrew. Kenshi was Inuzuka; it would take true desperation for her to seek support beyond her nin dog. Eri -- well. Maybe? Only his daughter was one of Iruka’s students, and Iruka stayed away from his students’ parents quite specifically.

“Excuse me,” Iruka said quietly, “but it isn’t any of these people. Do you, do you know if -- uh.” He stopped, throat clogging. The question sounded too presumptuous and embarrassing. Who did Iruka think he was to imagine he could be the bond mate of such a shinobi.

“Well, it’s _somebody_ ,” Tsunade said, staring at the map.

"Yes, but --” 

Abruptly, Iruka jerked to the side, hands going to his head. 

He'd just taken a stunning blow to the temple that knocked the room askew. He curled forward on the hospital bed, blocking everyone out, listening to his body and breathing in regular, regimented breaths. This was it. This person would die, and Iruka would never know if they had shared something important.

He waited for the next blow -- the killing stroke. He felt Naruto’s hand on his back, fingers pressing into Iruka’s skin.

The blows came on his hands, not his head, or his chest. His skin buzzed with the impact, hairs raising on end. He lifted his head slowly, daring to hope. 

“I just punched someone,” Iruka said, “I think, and -- oh, the cutting on my arm has stopped.”

Tsunade was watching him white-faced, her fingers digging into the sheets. Sakura looked at the paper where Iruka had been carefully sketching each additional cut. “This justu isn’t complete.”

Naruto touched Iruka’s shoulder as gently as he might handle a butterfly’s wing. He must be feeling the kyuubi close to the surface. He smiled, though it looked forced against his pale skin. “It’s definitely a Konoha shinobi then. Fighting back, escaping -- _ha!_ ”

“But which one,” Shikamaru said, annoyed. “And where? Look at that list again, sensei.”

“No,” Naruto said. “Iruka said it wasn’t any of them. Iruka-sensei, tell them what your heart says -- who is it?”

Iruka looked up into Naruto’s sincere face and flushed bright red. He closed his eyes and tried to find the strength to blast ahead, to not be stopped by the little things: the strength Naruto had. 

“It’s Hatake Kakashi,” he said, a self-deprecating twist to his lips.

The room went silent. When Iruka looked up, Naruto was blinking at him in open surprise. Everyone turned to each other, shouting back and forth. 

“He just returned from a mission. He’s in the village,” from Shikamaru.

“Did he pass his tests?” Sakura asked.

“He can’t take them if he’s chakra-exhausted or on the verge,” Ino said, eyes widening. “He gets a pass on some for 24 hrs.”

“Shit!” Tsunade said. “I knew coddling that kid was going to be trouble. Shikamaru!”

“On it,” he said. “Ino, with me. Naruto and Hinata -- please go to Kakashi’s place of residence. Expect that whoever’s inside is potentially an imposter. _Especially_ if they’re not injured.”

Iruka tried to stand and lost himself in a wave of dizziness. Naruto’s hands grabbed his elbows. Those same odd shapes of red and black moved over his vision. 

_The sharingan,_ he thought, awed.

**

Kakashi returned to Konoha three days later.

Iruka was outside, bellowing at a group of students and teachers clambering over the Academy’s old obstacle course. 

They were digging up the mechanism that ran the hidden obstacles, the posts of which had long since rotted. Iruka stood in the pit they’d dug next to a mass of the rusted gears and cables which had once pushed the wooden posts out of the earth. Sakura crouched, covered in mud and grease, nudging at the machinery with her precise chakra control. On the surface, the youngest students followed Shikamaru around carrying child-sized shovels, shocked and delighted that a jounin was digging in the dirt with them.

“You don’t need to be here,” Iruka reminded him shortly.

Shikamaru was walking backwards, eyeing the children like they might attack. “Shouldn’t you be trying to be happy for your bondmate? He can probably feel your mood, you know.”

“It might help,” Sakura mumbled, a screwdriver sticking out of her mouth.

“I’m not waiting at home to soothe Hatake Kakashi’s wounds with my kind love,” Iruka snapped, glowering up at Shikamaru from his three-foot-deep mud hole. 

His ribs still ached, and his arm stung under the phantom cuts. He felt tired every day, and he was so angry at how afraid he was. How could he be expected to send happiness and warmth along a bond when the very reason he needed to send good thoughts was the same reason he was terrified and furious? And then thinking about that made him more angry. He put his hands over his face and let out a breath through his nose like a bull.

He climbed out of the hole and stalked across the obstacle course to the wooden jungle gym where an army of eight year olds was sanding under the watchful eye of another teacher. “Suzume-sensei! Have you found any structural problems?”

“A few. We’ve tied them off with ribbons. Don’t suppose you’d consider those extra obstacles?”

“All our obstacles will be intentional, Suzume-sensei,” Iruka said fiercely, protectiveness bubbling up inside him though he had no idea how to achieve the grandiose goals spilling out of him. He sensed Shikamaru behind him by the sound of children’s shovels scraping the dirt. Iruka turned and shoved a finger at Shikamaru’s face. “I’m not here to weep over anyone. If he wants a _proper_ hero’s chakra bond, then he should bring me the kunai of every ninja who tries to hurt this village!”

Shikamaru sighed. “So you _do_ watch the movies.”

“Iruka-sensei, how long do you want to spend at this today?” Suzume asked. “We do have classes.”

Iruka frowned at the open yard, the old equipment. A wave of nostalgia overtook him. His eyes pricked; he felt something rise in his chest. His ribs were suddenly aching stronger than before. “This should be the best place for our future. Don’t you realize what a special home we have? Our children should have that.”

Suzume’s eyebrows lifted. “Iruka-sensei, I usually think of you as such a practical soul.”

“I am -- I just meant -- ” She was right. None of this was his usual style of sentiment. He didn’t know what he’d meant. 

He wrapped a hand around his aching ribs and spun, searching the horizon. There, at the school gate -- two figures, one blond, the other silver-haired, their travel cloaks whipping around in the wind. Was the second a little hunched, a little tired?

Iruka ran.

He skidded to a stop in front of Kakashi, who gave a small, sheepish wave. Naruto hand his hand around Kakashi’s elbow, and he was wearing his ‘hokage-face’: earnest and able to move mountains.

“Uh, hello,” Iruka said.

Kakashi scratched the back of his head. “I’m sorry to bother you, sensei. I should be headed to the hospital, but Naruto insisted…?”

Iruka flushed and glared a little at Naruto. “You shouldn’t risk your health. Are you alright?”

“Yes,” Kakashi said. Naruto coughed, and Kakashi amended, “Not life-threatening. An attempt was being made to reform the sound village.”

“The sound village?” Iruka repeated, horrified.

“Don’t worry, Iruka-sensei,” Naruto said. “There are no longer any sound nin on this earth.”

Iruka frowned. Kakashi made a little head shrug: _what can you do?_

“Their headquarters are also…gone," Naruto said, smiling. "We arrived in time to put out the fires."

“Oh,” Iruka said.

“Kakashi-sensei said he was feeling unusually fierce. He rarely gets angry, you know.”

“Oh,” Iruka said again. Kakashi blinked slowly at Naruto, eyebrow pulling down. With his thumb, he nudged his hitae-ate up.

Iruka immediately felt a sucking exhaustion weakening his knees, as though he were at the end of a long run, reaching for something his body didn't have. A headache coalesced under his left temple. He lunged forward, dragging Kakashi's hand and his headband back over his sharingan. "What are you _doing_?"

Kakashi had frozen, surprise betrayed only by a slight widening of his right pupil and a pale pink flush just peeking over his mask. He was staring at something unseen around the general region of Iruka's navel.

"You didn't know," Iruka said, surprised.

"I apologize," Kakashi said, pink spreading up his cheek.

"You -- " Iruka put his hands on his hips. Kakashi was standing with his feet in an Iwa-style combat stance, a little too stable for someone who wasn't having trouble standing up. Iruka sighed, aggrieved. 

He had spent three days thinking of himself as the bondmate to General Hatake Kakashi, Copy-nin. He should have remembered the person who'd been just as happy turning Iruka's genin team lists into paper airplanes as he'd been dropping unexpected glimpses of his own uncompromising standards. The person who would lounge in the sun, happily doing nothing until some outside force -- Iruka -- levered him into action. "That's it. Hospital. Thank you, Naruto."

Naruto released Kakashi’s arm, passing him into Iruka’s care with a satisfied smile, eyes crinkling. Kakashi shot an uncertain look between them.

"Ah, Iruka-sensei -- " Kakashi said.

"It was embarrassing for me, too," Iruka said. "But it's been days, and no one's made any attempt to keep it secret. I hope you'll come to accept it, for my sake."

"Your sake?" Kakashi repeated.

"My sake," Iruka repeated firmly. He turned towards them the road. As he did, he felt something warm and a little static-charged settling around his chakra, happy and volatile like a cat showing its belly.

 _Home_ , slid a lazy thought into the back of his mind as though it were his own.

**Author's Note:**

> For the June 17 prompt at [KakaIru Fest](http://kakairu-fest.livejournal.com/149401.html)'s month of KakaIru 2015, which was about soul bonds and not knowing who you'd bonded to. Obviously, I'm terrible at romantic fluff.


End file.
